Full text: Homily of Pope Leo XIV at the Mass he celebrated during his visit to Albano

Pope Leo XIV visited the Italian town of Albano on Sunday, and celebrated a Mass at the Sanctuary of Santa Maria Della Rotonda. In his homily he said that when Christ states that “came to bring fire to earth,” refers to the “fire of love” that opposes indifference and arrogance.

Next, the homily pronounced by Pope Leo XIV:

Dear brothers and sisters:

It is a joy to be together, to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist, which gives us an even deeper joy. If it is already a gift to be close today and overcome the distance looking into our eyes, as authentic brothers and sisters, it is a bigger gift to overcome death in the Lord. Jesus has defeated death – Sunday is his day, the day of the resurrection – and we already began to overcome it with Him. It is so, each of us arrives at Church with certain tiredness and fears – sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger – and suddenly we are less alone, we are together and we find the word and body of Christ. That way, our heart receives a life that goes beyond death. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen One, who does this among us and in us, silently, Sunday after Sunday and day after day.

We are in an old sanctuary whose walls hug us. It is called “Rotonda” and the circular form, as in the Plaza de San Pedro and as in other ancient and new churches, it makes us feel welcomed in God’s bosom. The Church on the outside, like some human realities, may seem rough; But his divine reality manifests when we cross the door and find welcome. Then our poverty, our vulnerability and above all the failures by which we can be despised and judged – and sometimes we despise and judge ourselves – are finally welcomed in the sweet strength of God, a love without roughness, an unconditional love. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is for us sign and anticipation of the motherhood of God. In it we become a mother church, which generates and regenerates not by virtue of a worldly power, but with the virtue of charity.

Perhaps we may have surprised us, in the gospel we have just read, what Jesus says. We seek peace, but we have heard: «Do you think that I have come to bring peace to Earth? No, I tell you that I have come to bring the division »(Lc 12.51). And we would almost answer: “But how, Lord, also you? We already have too many divisions. Are you not precisely you who said at the last dinner:” I leave peace, I give you my peace “?” “Yes,” the Lord could answer, “I’m me. But remember that that afternoon, my last afternoon, I immediately added about peace:” I give them my peace, but not as the world gives it. They don’t worry or fear! ” (Jn 14,27)”.

Dear friends, the world accustoms us to exchange peace with comfort, good with tranquility. Therefore, for your peace to come among us, the shalom From God, Jesus must tell us: “I have come to bring fire on earth, and how I would like it to be burning!” (Lc 12,49). Perhaps our same relatives, as the Gospel preanunciates, and even friends will divide into this. And some will advise us not to risk or wear down, because the important thing is to be calm and others do not deserve to be loved. Jesus, on the other hand, immersed himself in our humanity with courage. This is the “baptism” of which he speaks (v. 50): it is the baptism of the cross, a total immersion in the risks that love entails. And we, when – as it is said – “we do communion”, we feed on this bold gift. Mass strengthens this decision; It is the decision to not live for ourselves and bring fire to the world. Not the fire of weapons, nor that of words that incineate others. This is not. Rather, the fire of love, which is paid and serves, that opposes care for indifference and meekness to arrogance; The fire of goodness, which does not cost like armaments, but renews the world for free. It can cost misunderstanding, teasing, and even persecution, but there is no greater peace than having its flame in us.

That is why today I would like to thank, together with your bishop Vincenzo, to all of you, that in the diocese of Albanian they commit to carry the fire of charity. And I encourage them not to distinguish between the one who attends and the one that is assisted, between which it seems to give and the one that seems to receive, between which he presents himself poor and the one who feels the need to offer time, capacities and help. We are the Church of the Lord, a church of poor, all beautiful, all participants, each bearer of a unique word of God. Each is a gift for others. Let’s break down the walls. I thank those who work in each Christian community to facilitate the encounter between different people for their origin, for their economic, psychological, affective situation. Only together, just being a single body in which even the most fragile participates in full dignity, we will be the body of Christ, the Church of God. This happens when the fire that Jesus has come to bring burns the prejudices, caution and fears that continue to marginalize those who carry the poverty of Christ in their own history. Let’s not leave the Lord out of our churches, our homes and our life. Rather, let’s let him enter the poor, and then we will also make peace with our poverty, which we fear and refuse when we seek at all costs tranquility and security.

Who intercede for us the Virgin Mary, who listened to the Holy Elder Simeon who pointed to his Son Jesus as a “sign of contradiction” (Lc 2,34). That the intentions of our hearts are revealed, and that the fire of the Holy Spirit changes them from stone hearts in hearts of flesh.

Santa María de la Rotonda, pray for us.